Hacker News Reader

Comment by colemannugent | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, most news outlets will edit the original article with a small correction. Props to them for a full postmortem article.

View on HN

I am usually not one who favors government regulation of journalistic outlets, however I do have a proposal.

Media outlets should be required to publish a correction of a story at least as visible and for at least as long as the initial incorrect version.

This would prevent a site from first claiming something and then burying the correction somewhere where nobody finds it.

In Germany, people covered by factual statements in the news have a right (under certain conditions) to demand a "Gegendarstellung" presenting their reply (consisting only of factual statements, not opinions), and that reply has to be in an equally prominent location/size/etc in the same media outlet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_reply

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gegendarstellung

Of course factual statements need not be true. There was a famous case in Italy where a politician denied having been incarcerated, while sending his reply from a state prison.

Does a "Gegendarstellung" not require a court order?

I would very much love if the media outlets agree on self imposed "best practices for corrections".

Which in the end should be a benefit for those complying because they can advertise it and be more believable

The right exists without a court order (and I'd wager it is more often granted than not by established outfits, with notable exceptions like tabloids - like Germany's largest newspaper Bild - and the yellow press). However, some will have to resort to go to the courts if the publishing entity does not comply. Which will take some effort, it being a civil rights matter - e.g. paying court fees up front (and claiming the money back in the same suit, leaving the applicant with the risk of an opposing party with no money).

I think a specific subdomain or directory for all corrections would also be helpful. Visibility should be long term without an expiration or redirect.

A separate list of corrections would definitely be a good counterbalance, but it would probably only matter to those who are already trying to verify the correctness of the story in the first place and not to those who took it at face value.

This would require the government determine "the truth" which is probably a really bad idea.

I'm curious, how would you punish those who did not comply?

would it, or would it leave it up to the article publisher, but say IF AND WHEN you issue a retraction/correction, here is the way you must do it? I don't know that I agree with the proposal per se, but I think this specific criticism is misguided/wrong.

Say the fed implemented this as you described: Why would any news company bother issuing corrections then?

Publishers would just silently edit the article, forcing the federal government to monitor all news outlets content for changes. In the face of this daunting task, some naive senator would suggest that all news first be submitted to the fed for review.

The only solution to this problem is the nationalization of the news media, which would be a very bad thing. Sometimes the only way to win is not to play.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com